Clermont Must Raise Taxes

City's Needs Will Force The 1st Rate Increase In 6 Years

CLERMONT - It seems that the city's streak of six years without a property tax rate increase is about to end.

The City Council has to come up with a way to pay for a full-time fire department, salary rate increases for city employees and running a city with dwindling cash reserves.

That's going to cost.

The City Council is hammering out details of the city budget at workshops, but Clermont officials predict the rate increase could be as much as 50 cents for each $1,000 of taxable property.

For the owner of a $75,000 home with a $25,000 homestead exemption, that would mean a $37.50 increase in city property taxes, from $149 to $186.50.

Mayor Hal Turville said he thinks city residents won't squawk at the rate increase.

``I think that the average homeowner will think it's worth $37.50 to know that someone is actually living in that fire station, waiting for that bell to ring,'' he said.

It will cost about $196,000 for the city to hire five full-time firefighters, as planned.

Turville said it's probably time, or even past time, for the council to make the hard choices needed to maintain the city's level of service and the commitments it already has made.

The City Council faced the firefighter question last year at this time - and the ticket price then was nearly the same - but the council voted to put the issue off and study it until this year.

In January, it opted to hire full-time firefighters this summer.

The city also is looking for ways to pay $127,000 to increase the minimum salaries of about 50 of its lower-paid employees to be competitive with pay in neighboring cities.

The mayor said it's past time for the city to make some hard choices, some of which were addressed in recent years through the use of reserve money.

For instance, in 1994 the City Council kept about $2 million in reserves and the general fund was a bit less than $3 million.

In the proposed budget, the general fund would be almost $6 million and the city will have only $784,000 in reserves, Turville said.

``I can tell you that the city has been heavily dependent on its reserves. That's not sustainable,'' he said. ``So literally, if there was a major disaster, the funds would not be there.''

A formal spending proposal has not yet been presented to the public or the council for debate. Public hearings will be scheduled next month. Another workshop is scheduled at 6 p.m. Thursday at the police station.